


Chapter 0 - A Moth To A Flame

by CodexOmicron



Series: Now You Feel Like Number None [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Backstory, Fights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 20:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18746563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodexOmicron/pseuds/CodexOmicron
Summary: You watched as gods fell from the sky.Before you had anything. Before you found Cirucci. Before you found art and purpose and the beginning of a sense of self-worth. You tried to run away.You learned the hard way that when you bear the brand of Hollows, you cannot flee the war. The war will come to you.This chapter functions as a prologue to Now You Feel Like Number None, and may be read as a standalone piece.





	Chapter 0 - A Moth To A Flame

You watched as gods fell from the sky.  
  
For they were lesser gods, and their time had passed; and the only true God looked upon them and found them wanting. In their place He raised His new servants, gods forged by His own hand and His own design.  
  
And the palace of emptiness, the fortress of ghosts, held its breath for but a moment as the old gods were crushed under the weight of their own inferiority. And a murmur and a shudder passed in the hearts of all of your kind - you who had been exalted were now branded forever as derelicts. Your weakness was burned into your flesh and carved into your being through the very way your mask had been broken, revealed for all to see in the wake of these new gods; a loss that could never be made up.  
  
You were  _born wrong._  
  
  
You watch the prostrate, broken bodies of the old Espada, who were knights and nobility and monsters and are now nothing at all, save perhaps alive. Yours are two of dozens of fearful eyes; Numeros like you who all understand that they who had always been the weak, the lower caste, the downtrodden, have now been pushed yet further down on account of their origin. Mad ghosts who broke their mask to regain a shred of humanity, ‘natural’ Arrancars. Useless now that your Lord holds in his hand a stone that makes his wishes come true, that reshapes the soul into perfection.  
  
And amidst the proud and arrogant faces of the new Espada, forged by this wish-stone, you recognize one, though you have never seen him so human before. The taste of his contempt, his deafening sneer, shake you to the bone.  
  
Once again, the Killing Moon has come to take away what little life you’ve carved for yourself.  
  
You were part of an army once. There was a duke with a hundred arms, and there were a hundred soldiers and more who thought you their comrade in arms. You betrayed them all to save one life, your only friend.  
  
You are part of an army again now. How foolish of you to think it would go any better this time. Now you do not even have the excuse of your friend, you have no one left. No one at all.  
  
You will desert again, to save yourself. The Killing Moon has come. You have been made irrelevant. All that is left is misery; cowering as gods pass through these grey and empty halls, and eventually death when you somehow rouse their fickle anger over a fault you will not understand. You could see it plain as a tapestry laid out before your eyes.  
  
So you close your eyes on the broken Espada, turn away from the sneering moon and the smell of blood, and disappeared into the shadows.  
  
No one will miss you.  
  
  
You go out into the sands, far enough than none will see you, and you plunge your hands into the fabric of the air, soft under your touch. You tear it open, grunting in effort as reality comes apart at the seams, leaving only a mouth of blackness. You do not know where it will lead. Somewhere in the living world. Somewhere far away. Somewhere no one will find you.  
  
You enter the path of shadows, haunting memories at your back.  
  


  
***

  
  
You leave the darkness, and darkness welcomes you. But a softer kind, velvet-dark, sprinkled with stars, with a moon full and warm, not like the laughing crescent of Hueco Mundo. You stand in the sky, wind brushing your hair, and below you stretches out the city of men; under your feet crackle thin white threads of spiritual essence. Even there, up in the sky, you cannot feel as if you have reclaimed the gift of flight. You are only standing on a platform a little higher than most.  
  
At first, the city seems peaceful. You watch its empty streets, its towering grey blocks of buildings… And then you start to see the signs of strife. Some of the lights are not lamps in humans’ homes, but fires in huddled alleyways. The streets are strewn with rubbles; tall buildings have been gutted like grey giants, iron and concrete viscerae spilling from the open bellies of shopfronts and shattered homes. And, here and there, the sound of a thunderclap, with no sign of lightning… Human weapons.  
  
You have come to a spectacle of war. You suppose it is fitting. You let the platform dissolve under your feet and fall down into the streets, landing in a crouch.  
  
The wars of the living are no concern to you. In peace or strife, they cannot see you. Their stray shots were nothing for you to fear. Indeed, such confusion and chaos will make it easier for you to hide from any hunter from Las Noches, come to make you repay your betrayal.  
  
Once… You distantly remember… You feared the Reapers of Souls. But it seems so long ago; before you were Arrancar, before you met Mantis, in this infinite stretch of sand and starless night where memories blur. A fear engraved in your very being, from the days as a base Hollow which you no longer clearly recall, kept you in Hueco Mundo. You wandered out, once or twice… Always afraid. The shadow of the Reapers hang over the world.  
  
But what do you have to fear now? In Las Noches you are a weakling. But you are still Adjuchas. What is a threat to common Hollows should be no danger to you. And you are Arrancar besides, free of the hunger. You never have to draw their attention.  
  
This world is infinitely less dangerous to you than the halls of Las Noches where capricious gods prowl and newborn monsters lurk. You will make your new home here, where the Exequias will never find you.  
  
You walk the streets, Polilla swinging at your waist, for once uncaring of who can see you. The tall concrete buildings stare down facelessly, only a few of their windows lit. There are vehicles laid carelessly across the road - cars, you remember those. You’re not sure what year it is, or how long it’s been since you visited the living world. The technology doesn’t seem massively different, although the devastation makes it hard to tell.  
  
You hop on top of a car, and then over a heap of rubble, and you sit there surveying your surroundings. In the distance you hear a handful more claps, but they slowly come to a stop. No ongoing battle, then.  
  
Such a wounded place… Scorch marks on the wall, pockmarks on the walls… And the smells in the air. Burning rubber, lingering smoke, backed-up refuse. There must have been much tragedy here, much death, much grieving. It must be full of Hollows. Not threatening, not as long as there aren’t too many of them noticing you at once, but it could make your life a pain. You close your eyes, breathe in, and open your mind’s eye all at once, in a wide pulse washing over this entire district of the city. Pesquisa, the art of instantly sensing all spiritual signatures in a wide area; one of your gifts as an Arrancar.  
  
Uh. Strange. You can’t sense a single Hollow in a wide vicinity, nor even a mortal soul. A brief pang of worry, but - no, no powerful soul that might indicate a Shinigami either. You sigh. It seems this will be a lonelier place than you thought, but that is not a bad thing; Hollows make for poor companions.  
  
If nothing else, it means you can afford to explore. You stand up on your heap of rubble and launch yourself into the air, towards the building across the street; your ghostly body phases effortlessly through the wall and you land in an empty room. A coat of plaster dust from the many explosions which shook this wall covers what was once a small, but cosy living room; it was left in a hurry, not packing many of the personal belongings of whoever once lived here. You put your hand on the table at its center and brush its surface, leaving a wide mark in the dust and revealing varnished wood, dark and softly gleaming in the moonlight.  
  
You think that you would like to have a table like that in that tiny corner of Las Noches you call a home, a dimly-lit nest of grey wall devoid and furniture. Then you remember that you are not coming back to Las Noches, and move on.  
  
Family pictures. An ornate glass vase, containing the empty stems of wilted flowers. A child’s drawing, lines rough and inelegant but colors vibrant and lively, framed on the wall. A family place. Not for you. You move on, another jump, another wall crossed, then another, then out of the building and into another.  
  
The light draws you. You enter a home in which people still live. A man and a woman of adult age, a much older woman, some children. They walk slowly and speak in hushed tones, as if bearing a great weight, and their features are weary, their faces carved with deep grooves of fear and anxiety. Yet even so, they are not desperate. In the way they smile to each other and huddle close, you can feel that they have a kind of happiness, a kind of hope. Their fear does not cancel it out; the two exist side by side. Their home is sparsely furnished, but you pause a moment to admire the curtains, green-and-red in artful geometric patterns, similar to the scarf the older woman wears on her head and the blanket under which the youngest child is curled up. Wherever you live, you would like to have curtains such as these, to shield out the sun, and to lose yourself watching the patterns. You linger for a while, watching them chat as they eat together.  
  
When you leave, you snatch a little wooden horse from a shelf. Perhaps one of the children will miss it. But to hold it in your hand, turning it this way and that, looking at it… It fascinates you. It reminds you of your friends’ contraptions, the human figures he would make out of sticks and thread. Tears well up in your eyes as you stare at this toy, so simple, so human. When was the last time you owned anything but the clothes on your back and the sword at your waist? Here, perhaps, you can make something…  
  
You go up, reaching a rooftop and pausing at its edge. This part of the city is less ravaged than others, there are more lights. Still you see no spirits. You cannot tell if it is the center or the periphery, not at night and being so unfamiliar with the place; but if you are to live here, you should at least begin to get a sense of your new home. Its sights, its sounds, its… Smells…  
  
There is something strange on the wind. A fragrance at once overpowering and enticing. The smell of bread warm out of the oven, of meat roasting on the fire, of spices churning in their sauce. Smells you have no name for and yet understand instinctively. You breathe in deeply and feel its source; it’s a trail on the wind, coming from another place in the city.  
  
You do not hunger as Hollows do, not anymore. You do not have to consume souls. Yet still you need to eat, as any human would, and that smell makes your mouth water and your stomach rumble. You take one moment to think, then jump off towards its source.  
  
It is further away than you thought at first, and you must cross a few city blocks before you can reach it, growing closer to the heart of the devastation. You see a handful of humans prowling the streets, weapon at their side, but there is no active fighting at this time. Still you remain high up, sticking to the rooftops, avoiding the rubble in the streets.  
  
The source of the smell is a plaza where once towered a sculpted fountain. Now the statue is headless and armless, its water no longer springs, and what remained in the basin around it has been drunk away long ago. You hop down to the ground, but do not approach the fountain yet, for you feel a disturbing shiver at your back. The smell here is no longer just a smell; there is a potency to it, a faint radiating energy, like the spiritual aura of a powerful mortal soul - but there is no such soul in sight. The presence is diffuse, and strong enough that it appeals to the Hollow part of you, beckons it closer. If you were still a true Hollow it would be overwhelming, drive you mindless with hunger, but you are Arrancar, and that instinct is only a distant memory.  
  
The plaza stretches before a tall building with a tower, a place of worship of some kind, church or temple; you are no longer familiar with human faiths. Its face is dotted with the scars of human weapons, but it still stands. It seems that whoever controls this district wanted to show it; someone drew a large numeral on face of the tower.  
  
It reads “11.”  
  
You take a few hesitating steps along the perimeter of the plaza, trying to find the exact source of the fragrance, hoping there is some food to claim here.  
  
Then something lunges from the shadows behind you, and in your surprise you can only start in panic. Before you can cry out a great paw clasps on your mouth and you are pulled into the darkness of a building, squirming madly.  
  
The thing that has taken you is strong and massive, its bulk restraining your movements, its musk pungent as a charnel-house, and your mind is full of flashing images of your own horrible death at the end of some predator… But as you struggle against your captor you can feel its strength is lacking, your panicked senses finally glimpse that its power is low. You manage to wriggle one hand out of its grasp, draw Polilla out of her sheathe and slash blindly. The beast darts away and you stand up, heart beating madly, mouth agape and panting, sword shaking in your grasp. Too long since your last fight. You’ve lost the edge.  
  
But the monster is not circling you, nor is it bracing for an attack. It simply hunches down in a corner, shining golden eyes staring at you through a wide mask that looks like the skull of some predatory beast. A base Hollow. You breathe and relax slightly. It may have taken you for a Plus soul, and backed down when it realized your strength. You must have gone past the range covered by your earlier Pesquisa - it seems there are spirits in the city, after all.  
  
And then, to your surprise, the monster speaks.  
  
“Quiet,” it hisses. It’s not that it’s unusual for Hollows to be capable of speech - what is unusual is them bothering to use it. You look at him, confused. What does he mean, ‘quiet?’ You weren’t making any sound…  
  
“Your pressssure is… Loud. Hide it. Or we both die.”  
  
Surprise abates, slowly replaced by a creeping feeling of dread. You swallow nervously and force your aura of spiritual power, the reiatsu always oozing out of your spiritual form, to recede into your body. It’s an uncomfortable feeling an itch just  _below_  your skin where you can’t scratch it, and it takes you sustained effort to keep it up; but for now you should be almost imperceptible to spiritual senses.  
  
Who is he hiding from? You don’t sense any spiritual power in the vicinity - but you can’t use Pesquisa to make sure; if anyone is around they could sense it.  
  
“When the army came… When the fighting started… They waited… For weeks,” the Hollow says, raising clawed paws to his mask and scratching it like a dog with fleas. “Waited for enough of ussss to be dead, twisssted… Enough to make a sssport out of it. I have been trapped here for days… They haven’t found me… But I can’t essscape… They would sssee me. Ssso… Hungry.”  
  
Cold sweat runs down your back, circling the contours of the hole in your throat. Is he talking about the Shinigami? He must be; but you didn’t see or sense any while you were running around the city.  
  
“They don’t hunt,” the Hollow says, shaking its head. Now you can see the madness in the golden gleam of his eyes, the hunger. “They don’t patrol. They give each other… A part of the city… And bait usss… Lure usss in… Wait, for usss, to come. And kill.”  
  
The smell wafting from the plaza. And around it, reaching entire district. Compelling even to you, an Arrancar; overpowering for a hungry Hollow. But without any source one could actually feed on. A trap, then.  
  
“They ssstarve usss. Send on all the plussses, heedless of their grief, their attachment, ssso we can’t eat them and go mad with hunger. But if one has a chain, is going mad, they let them be… So they can become Hollow… And be more sport for them.”  
  
You shudder. Is this… is this truly how the Reapers operate? Such callous monstrosity. To let souls twist upon themselves until their heart is lost and they become only madness, grief and anger, all for… Sport?  
  
You need to get out of here. Coming to this city was a mistake, but it is an easy one to fix. You just have to find some other place that is not being used as hunting grounds…   
  
“Hush!” the Hollow says, eyes gleaming wider, and you start again. “Did you hear that?”  
  
Silence falls over the room. You stretch out your senses, compulsively pulling the collar of your grey cloak as if it might protect you from sight. You hear nothing…  
  
But you feel it. The crackling of power in the air, red as blood, crimson as curtains closing.   
  
“They sssaw you! You led them here!” the Hollow cries out; in one mad rush he hurtles past you, sending you tumbling with a gasp, your back rolling on pebbles. The beast emerges out of the broken piece of wall through which he pulled you in, and…  
  
For one moment, it is a perfect picture. In the background the broken fountain and the defaced temple-tower, the ruins of man. In the foreground the wide breach in the wall, framing the painting in darkness. And in the middleground, the black shape of one Hollow cast against the night sky, and a graceful falling figure wielding a moon-like crescent, steel gleaming like silver under the stars.  
  
Black robes billow and flutter, sandaled foot hitting the ground soundlessly, a dancer’s twirl as the shape turns away from the Hollow. Behind it the beast rears up and splits open like a book whose spine has been torn too far. Blood sprays out, red against the dark of the sky, staining the stairs.  
  
The hollow falls. The Shinigami smiles at you.  
  
He is beautiful in a way that terrifies you. Short and slim, with soft, fine features, accentuated by careful make-up and strange, feather-like ornaments jutting out of the corner of his right eye, two yellow, two red. His black robes are flowing, elegant, and he has a strange collar of orange wool, one thread tying it to a glove on his right hand.  
  
In that hand he holds the blood-stained sword. Zanpakutou. The death of the self, the end of the soul, purification through destruction, rebirth through annihilation.  
  
“My, my, what a raggedy thing you are,” he says, his teeth shining so very white. You back up and hit the wall. Your hand clutches Polilla with desperation, and you hear the sound of your own heart beating in your temples, of your heavy breath. “Even a foul beast such as yourself should have the  _dignity_  not to clothe herself in rags like a beggar.”  
  
You don’t want any trouble. You’re not a Hollow, after all. You know it’s a desperate plea, and one unlikely to find purchase, but it’s all you have: you are not a true Hollow, you do not eat human souls, and so there is no reason for the Reaper to fight you, no reason for you to kill each other. You could just go your separate ways.  
  
The Shinigami tilts his head, smiling.  
  
“And pass up the chance to fight a  _proper_  opponent? Not a mindless beast, but someone with a sword and a mind? You’ve never heard of the Eleventh Division, have you. Indeed, I get to add an Arrancar to my tally before Madarame ever met one! He’ll  _never_  get over it.”  
  
Arrancar? But he knows what you are then, and he still wants to fight you? Your eyes go wide, and you raise your hands in a frantic plea. You are not his enemy, not… Not anymore. Why would he fight you? Isn’t his task to cleanse Hollows?  
  
“Yes,” he says wistfully, flicking a lock of his hair. “I do know what you are. I’ve been told of your kind. A Hollow so starved she broke her own mask to be free of the hunger. But still unclean, still tainted. One only needs to look at you. That rabid fear in your eyes. That stained grey cloak, unkempt hair, twitching hands. You live a life of misery. You are lost, but you refuse to acknowledge it, you cling on to this half-life. It’s all right. The duty of the Shinigami is not solely to free Hollows, but to help all souls pass on. Yours among them.”  
  
One drop of the Hollow’s blood falls from the tip of his sword, as slow and perfect as a snowflake. The Shinigami gives you a gentle look.  
  
“But please,  _do_  make a fight of it. Otherwise it wouldn’t be any fun.”  
  
Your mind blanks out. Thoughts are drowned out by sheer terror. You move on pure instinct. Your hand draws Polilla of its own accord, your feet take a step in autonomous panic, you cross half the room to thrust the rough edge of your own Zanpakutou towards the Reaper’s chest.  
  
He blinks out of existence and you hear the soft touch of his sandals on the ground behind you. Your shoulder splits apart in a spray of blood, and you stumble forward, carried by your own momentum, out of the ruined building and unto the pavements of the plaza, gasping for breath. Your right sleeve sleeve feels too tight around the arm, matted with something warm and slick…  
  
You get up before he can strike again, raise your sword in a guard, but the Reaper comes with deliberate slowness, almost leisurely. He’s faster than you - stronger, too, no doubt. He knows he can afford to toy with you. Your hand is already shaking from the wound in your shoulder…  
  
He blinks again and is in front of you, sword held in both hands and coming down into an executioner’s stroke.  
  
This is the one moment. His blow to your shoulder was calculated with the strength to slice through a spirit’s flesh, and he thinks he’s ruined your arm.  
  
He doesn’t know about Hierro, the steel-skin of the Arrancars. As weak as yours is, he did not commit enough strength to his first strike to keep it from weakening his blow. You’ll only get the benefit of that surprise once.  
  
Your sword rises in a blur, striking his own at an angle, deflecting the brunt of the hit his momentum towards the pavement. Polilla slides underneath it, caressing his flank. You cut through his black robe, the white undercloth, and draw a trickle of blood. A shallow cut. Enough to surprise him. He steps back, giving you time to raise your guard when he comes at you again. Swords clash-  
  
And while you are locked together he raises his leg and his foot kicks you in the ribs with more force than you could ever manage. Your breath is knocked out of your lungs and you go flying backwards, hitting the basin around the broken fountain. Pain flares through your back, reaches your head, drowns your vision in stars.  
  
He’s just a better fighter than you are. Your hand reaches blindly for the basin’s edge, pushing yourself up, Polilla raking across the stones. You blink tears out of your eyes. The Reaper is coming, smiling…  
  
And then he pauses, and that confident smile turns into a grimace of outrage.  
  
“What kind of sorry excuse for a sword is  _that?_ ” He blurts out, and you blink. “You’re holding it by the  _tang?_  No hilt, no pommel, no decorations, no guard? That edge is barely polished - it doesn’t even shine! Everything about you is…” And then his playful demeanor turns to anger. “A parody of what a Shinigami should be. Disgusting.”  
  
It shouldn’t mean anything to you. It should be simply baffling, that he gets hung up over the shape of your sword.  
  
Instead it makes your heart seize up just a little. Polilla was born out of your broken mask, molded from your heart. It is an extension of your soul.  
  
And it is ugly, unfinished, graceless, and incomplete.  
  
Just like you are.  
  
Here he comes again. He is no mere ghost, he is no Hollow, he is like the gods that haunt the halls of Las Noches, his soul as hard as steel, confidence embodied in every gesture, his every motion graceful and calculated. You parry his strokes frantically, skittering backwards without grace and almost stumbling. Your arm shakes with every blow. He’s barely looking at you, a thin smirk on his lips, paying more attention to the artful flourish of his black sleeves that accompanies every exchange. Your steps take you across the basin, and more and more shallow cuts adorn your forearms, shoulders and face. You move to  _his_  tune, walking where he wants you to walk.  
  
There is one thing he doesn’t know. You  _are_  unfinished, incomplete. When the Lord of Las Noches laid his hands upon yours to guide you as you broke your mask, your entire being melted away. Like raw iron ore, you were molten and cast into a new shape. But you twisted the mould. All the strange powers of Hollows, the tricks adopted by predators to better survive in an endless desert, dissolved into raw power, power for your new human shape. And you feared. You feared to lose these tools of survival. You feared to move past what you were.  
  
You clung on to shreds of your Hollow form. You held back. And so you were born weaker than you should have been, weaker than this Shinigami.  
  
But for this reason, he does not realize what you were before that grotesque alchemy of the soul.  
  
The Reaper swats your blade away and raises his blade for the finishing blow, and in that moment you strain with all your body to push your power outwards, reveal the strength of the Adjuchas you once were. Your reiatsu slams into him, and for one moment he halts, hesitating, eyes wide in surprise.  
  
You thrust your empty left hand, the one he did not worry about, and push all of that power through it, into your hand, where it burns and howls and writhes. You touch his chest and there is a deafening clap fading into grieving moans. The Shinigami is hurled through the air and crashes into the wall of a mostly-intact building. You spare one thought for the destruction you compound on this city’s desolation, and hurl another Bala as the Shinigami tries to stand. His back slams into the wall again, cracking it further, and the entire building shudders as it threatens to collapse.  
  
Warring instincts tear your mind apart, make you slow to move. The Hollow in you want to jump on the enemy with enough ferocity that he never gets to strike back after the surprise of your assault. The girl just wants to take that opportunity to run away. You split the difference; you kick the ground, rising straight into the air, and at the same time you pour more power into your hand, wisps of grey mist dancing around your fingers, a wail as high-pitched as tinnitus rising and rising. You hurl it from above like a thunderbolt, finally shattering the wall and bringing the house down.  
  
Indecision costs you your chance. The Shinigami recovered faster than you thought. As your Bala hits the wall he jumps from the ground, streaking through the air while the house collapses behind him. His agility is far above your own. White lights flicker around his feet as he lightly dances through the air, bearing down on you. You back away in panic, forming wide clumsy platforms of reishi to stay aloft, hurling half-cooked Balas one after the other, all of them missing their moving target.  
  
And then he is there, eyes to eyes with you, so close you could embrace him. He smiles.  
  
His fist slams into your ribs, and you fly just as he did before, the whole world a blur. Glass shatters at your passing. Your back hits stone, you tumble upside down, and finally the ground welcomes you with a great smack. You crash through a row of wooden benches, splinters and dust raining down on you. A despoiled altar stares coldly at you, long-rid of its golden ornament and its worshipful tapestries, only cold stone now. The temple. You just fell from one of its high windows.  
  
You lie there, breathless, bleary eyes stuck to the ceiling, as the Soul Reaper descends with lazy grace. He walks as if there is some unseen, spiralling stairway to take him down, light crackling under his feet with each step.  
  
“You fight well,” he says, and the worst of it is the sincerity in his tone. He is not being sarcastic, he is not  _trying_  to be condescending. He honestly enjoys this. “These missiles of yours look a lot like Kido, only faster, more instinctive. It’s a solid trick. I think you actually cracked two of my ribs. Tell me, can you use Cero?”  
  
...what? You broke his bones and he is still fighting? What kind of violence-obsessed monster…  
  
For a brief second the anger overcomes the pain and fear, and you stare daggers at him, your face twisting in a grimace of loathing. He chuckles, twirling his sword into a point-down grip, stopping a couple feet short of touching the ground. You push yourself up, plant Polilla’s tip into the ground to push yourself up, then hold your sword before you.  
  
“I could have struck you with my sword, with that last blow. Do you know why I did not?”  
  
You’re inexperienced. You’re awful at close combat. But you’re not an  _idiot,_  and you are always keenly aware of your possibilities of escape, because the world has always been a threat to you. So yes, you know. If he had struck you with his blade in mid-air, lack of leverage would have kept it from being a lethal cut, and you would have fallen straight down. His punch - and  _God,_  where does he get that strength - sent you crashing into a building. You’re trapped now, denied the mobility to fully take advantage of your Bala.  
  
“My, my, but you are smart. You know, if you’d been a mortal soul, you might have been a good fit for… I don’t know. The Fifth? Definitely not our lot. You have no idea the heat you get for being a ranged specialist in the Eleventh.”  
  
You don’t respond. You have nothing to say to entertain this banter, not when he has so clearly announced his desire to kill you. You probe at your flank with your free hand and flinch slightly - heavy bruises, the worst of it on your back. No fractures. He’s not strong enough to break bones with a punch, then.  
  
You exhale, straighten your back, and present your sword in a gesture of salute and defiance. The Shinigami smiles.  
  
“In honor of your fighting spirit and surprising resilience, let me treat you as I would an honored enemy of Soul Society,” he says, and raises his sword in a salute to mirror your own. “I am Yumichika Ayasegawa, Fifth Seat of the Eleventh Division of the Gotei Thirteen.”  
  
Fifth Seat. And your Balas cracked his ribs. Perhaps… Perhaps you might have a chance. You stare at him, holding your stance, and he chuckles.  
  
“Not gonna answer in kind, Arrancar? That’s fine. I don’t suppose you have any kind of organization, or oaths, or even comrades… Hollows are a lonely bunch, after all.”  
  
Your lip twitches. Anger rises again.  
  
Your name is Nemo.  
  
The Shinigami raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Nemo, huh? A beautiful name, for one who is not. Then Nemo, whose name is at odds with her appearance, let me at least grant you one more beautiful thing: a beautiful death.  **Bloom, Fujikujaku.”**  
  
He waves his sword through the air with a lazy gesture, and the blade… Ripples. Like reflections in the water. One moment there is a simple sword, and then it is a sickle, two, three, four…  
  
Four sickle-like blades fanning out of a single hilt, connected at the guard. What kind of absurd weapon is this? How can anyone fight with…  
  
A single-flash step and he is on your left, flanking you on your free-hand side and still two feet off the ground, swinging his sickles down. He has the advantage of speed and height, but the bizarre shape of his weapon is slowing it down, it does not move as easily through the air as in its previous sword. You manage to pivot on your heels and bring Polilla up in a hasty parry, one of the sickles hitting her edge with a clang and a spark…  
  
There is a clicking sound and all three other sickles swing after the first, moving with their own strength, and suddenly you are parrying four sword-strokes at once. Your frail body cannot handle it. Your knees buckle, your arm is pushed against your chest, your grasp loosens. The curved hook-like Zanpakutou slides around Polilla and with one swing of his arm the Reaper wrenches her out of your grasp, tossing her into the air.  
  
You step back, defenseless, terrified, and Yumichika Ayasegawa pulls back. With a flick of his wrist the sickle blades fan out again, and he whirls them through the air around him. Their forms blur together like strange feathers or eyes, like a peacock’s tail unfolding and flapping in the wind, and you can’t see where his next move is coming from…  
  
Feathers fold up and four streaks of pain burn their way across your chest. Your hand unconsciously reaches behind you and you grasp the back of a wooden bench; you propel yourself above it to throw some desperate obstacle in the Reaper’s way and he simply walks through it, his unreadable corona of blades slicing it to artful ribbons of wood.  
  
His blade sweeps in for the kill, aiming to take your head. You throw your left arm before your face, channeling all the strength you can into your iron skin. The first sickle comes down and it is a mere cut, deep and bloody as it is.  
  
Then the three other blades click and join their sister, and a fourfold grasp slices your arm to the bone. You hear yourself scream through a haze of pain. The Reaper twists his hand to catch your arm in the hook, wrenches it away as he did your blade.  
  
In that moment he is open, and you wade through the pain to force your right hand into one jab. Your fist connects with the Shinigami’s face. Then your Bala explodes between his skin and yours, and you are both hurled through row upon row of benches.  
  
You were Hollow once. You are used to agony. All the scars and old aches help you move through this fresh pain. Sonido takes you into the air, and you hit the wall where Polilla stuck blade-first ten yards above the ground. You grasp her in your one good hand, put your feet on the wall for support, and channel your spiritual strength into your mask, through your horns, and between them, an orb of power shining above your head like a jewel.  
  
You unleash your Cero, a stream of wispy grey light howling like the condemned man dragged to the gallows, ghostly flickers weaving around its core of light. It strikes where you hope the Shinigami is and shakes the entire temple. Windows shatter and starlight streams in, cold and uncaring of your battle.  
  
The light fades, though echoes linger. You rip Polilla out of the wall and let yourself fall, knees hitting the ground harshly.  
  
Your left arm is useless. It doesn’t even hurt anymore; the sickle-blades did not make a clean cut but a series of jagged gouges that circle halfway around it, slicing your tendons and scraping the bone. Horrifyingly, you can see a gap in it, so wide is the wound.  
  
It doesn’t even hurt anymore. But your body is cold and shivering, every muscle trembling, sweat thick on your neck and back, eyes twitching. You tighten your grip on your sword, so hard your knuckles go white, and…  
  
His power surges out; a great crown of feathered eyes blazing around him as he walks out of the dust.  
  
No. No!  _How?_  He survived a Cero- no. He didn’t have to. As powerful as your attack was, there is a reason you always favor Bala. Cero takes too long to charge, especially when you first ran to fetch your sword and put distance between you and him…  
  
He dodged it. The bastard dodged it, at least partly. And now he is walking out of the dust, the left side of his uniform torn, strands of black fabric scorched, his arm covered in bruises and burn marks, but not nearly as ruined as your own.  
  
The Reaper pauses, his eyes cold and unreadable, and he looks down at his uniform.  
  
When he stares at you again, his eyes are like dark, yawning pits.  
  
“You ruined my uniform. A soldier’s pride. You have struck at my status and honor.”  
  
And in that moment, you know that you have seen nothing yet.  
  
 **“Split and deviate…”**  
  
You do not hear the last words; the name of the horror within his blade. The light blinds you, its beautiful shimmering colors, its languid, sensual, horrifying unfolding. The man, the Reaper, Yumichika, you do not see him; you only see the vines that grow and suck in all light out of the air.  
  
You turn, you run, you jump. One tendril whips out and wraps around your maimed arm, almost gently.  
  
A thousand barbs pierce your soul. They transcend any pain of the body; they violate the sanctity of your being, reach into the depths of your true self, breach the boundaries with a hundred creeping roots. They burrow into your soul, into your sword, and they rip out your essence and drink of it with a thirst that has no end.  
  
You forget what it is to be human. You let the beast consume you, for it knows the only way to survive. What strength the vines do not drink you infuse into your legs, and you let them take you away, a desperate Sonido even as the vines hold your arm. Torn flesh rips apart. Scratched bones snap. Your arm is gone. So are the barbs. You live, for a second more.  
  
You land on the empty altar. Far, far beyond you are the gates of the temple, which you cannot reach, for before them grow the vines, beautiful in their horror. You have no chance.  
  
You do not scream, for you have no voice in this moment. You let your Cero shriek for you, its howling-mad fury tearing through the air, aimed not at the Shinigami but at everything above you, the walls and columns of the temple, and it sweeps a path of destruction. The tower above you begins to collapse. Rocks fall to entomb you.  
  
The vines lash out, swat the rocks out the way. The Reaper advances through the cataclysm, stone shattering around him, more and more vines crawling out of his blazing hand. This would be your tomb, but not his.  
  
You had enjoyed playing at humanity. You had relished being an Arrancar. You never knew what would happen if, for a moment, you ceased to be. You feared, and so there are words you never spoke, not in all the time since your mask was broken and you were born misshapen and frail.  
  
You speak them now.  
  


  
***

  
  
These are the things of the world: the darkness of the tomb, closing like the maw of oblivion. The blazing light of the vines, ever-growing and ever-hungry. A tiny thing of blood and bone, twisted on the ground. The cold and distant stars, staring down without kindness and compassion, an escape out of reach.  
  
And a single broken shadow.  
  
The shadow moves through the light. The vines coil and caress, and the shadow dances between them. With every brush the shadow bleeds away, less and less dark, more and more grey and empty.  
  
The shadow dives into the heart of the light, and grasps the thing of blood and bone, swallows it into its mantle, and it is flesh no more, it rejoins the shadow and becomes shadow in turn.  
  
Then the shadow reaches for the stars, flickering up and up on falling stones, working a path to the heavens even as the road crumbles behind it. The light reaches too, and yet still the shadow dances through its whipping arms.  
  
This is its blessing: shadows are not real. They are our nightmares and the things we see in the corner of our eyes, and so they pass through this world as if it did not exist. Even as the light stretches its hand to capture it, it cannot hold it, for a shadow in the light just disappears.  
  
The light cannot grasp the shadow. It can only kill it. And so inch by inch, the shadow dies, but it is ever free.  
  
Then at last the temple falls, the maw closes, the rocks settle, and the light is smothered for only an instant.  
  
Now the shadow stands in the sky, a shred without any strength, and the stars are distant still. It can never reach them. It can never find warmth among their lot.  
  
So it rips a seam in the world and joins a world of starless night, where the moon will forever mock it for thinking it could touch the sky.  
  


  
***

  
  
You lie in darkness.  
  
Oblivion is sweet. It is without pain or fear or regret. It is without dreams. For a time, you have ceased to exist, and a part of you wishes it could go on forever.  
  
Then something pierces the veil of unconsciousness.  
  
It is pain, of course. These days it seems like it is always pain of some kind or another.  
  
You stir, gritting your teeth, shaking your head. You are lying face down in the sand, and something is pulling at your arm, gnawing at your skin…  
  
Your eyes fly open. A Hollow is crouching over your body, its masked head worrying at your left arm, trying to pierce through your Hierro to get at the sweet flesh within. Your mind is too numb to take full comprehension of this fact, to panic or fear. You try to pull your arm out of its mouth and it pulls back angrily; you turn on your flank, try to bring your right hand to throw a Bala at its head… Nothing.  
  
You have no power left. You exist on a level of exhaustion you did not know before was possible to achieve. Or survive.  
  
The Hollow gnaws and gnaws, and you manage to twist your arm underneath your body and pull Polilla out of her sheathe, and with a voiceless grunt you stab her point into the beast’s mask. It yelps loudly and lets go of your arm, sauntering away. It takes one last look at you and appears to decide that such hardened meat is not worth it if it also comes with painful spiky bits. Turning away with a grunt, it shambles off towards the horizon. Off to the right of its path you can see the vast dome of Las Noches in the distance, only the peaks visible over the dunes. It looks small from here - wherever “here” is. You must be miles away. Dozens of miles. That last, desperate Garganta was poorly aimed indeed.  
  
You pull yourself up, every bone in your body aching. Aside from the bruises on your arm, all the wounds you suffered in your fight seem to have healed. Is this the power of Resurreccion? You try to reach back with your mind, to think back to that trance-like state when you escaped…  
  
You shut it off immediately and shove the memories down as far as they can go. No. This was not you. This cannot be you.  
  
And you still lost. You knew you were weak, but never  _this_  weak.  
  
The world of the living is no place for you. Not if there are such things within it, such hunters whose eyes shine with bloodlust, for whom killing you is not a misguided duty but a matter of pleasure.  
  
But neither can Las Noches be a home to you. Not with god-like monsters casting it in shadow, not with its harsh, ever-watching sun.  
  
And the sands of Hueco Mundo… The starless night without end… You would fade away there, dissolve into nothing.  
  
You have no home.  
  
Something weighs at your side, you realize. Slowly, every motion a struggle against exhaustion, you reach inside your uniform.  
  
You pull out a child’s wooden horse. Its paint is chipped. One of its legs is stubby. You remember stealing it away from a war-torn home. You turn it in your hands, thinking.  
  
There are no worthwhile things in Hueco Mundo or Las Noches. But there are in the living world. Things that could one day let you build something of a life, something of a home, something, perhaps, a little like peace.  
  
If only it was not haunted by the reaper’s scythe.  
  
You pocket the wooden horse, and begin the slow walk towards Las Noches and Aizen’s army.


End file.
